Gaming On Linuxresumed it’s competition after the failed attempt last time.LGN and GOL made competitions back then, asking for news/articles – but sadly it didn’t go well for both of us.
LGN had only 1 contender who won by default, and as far a I know GOL had none.
Then LGN made a second competition asking for a new wordpress theme for the website, but none took part in it.

I really am out of good ideas for competitions people would want to take part it, I don’t want to just giveaway games for free like LGP did recently.
I want to make it more interesting.

GOL now has it’s own contest which is more like a giveaway – but it has a very interesting question :
“Why do you think, you deserve to win it ?”
The best answer will get you Osmos, if you still don’t have it by now.
You just need to register and replay on their website.
Note that the competition ends 10PM GMT Wednesday 1st September

I would be interested to read the answers to this question.
I remember back then when HoN gone retail, one person practically begged for a free account on the forums, many people weren’t impressed and made jokes about him – until one rich guy finally gave him a free account (payed for his account).
Did this person deserve to “win” his account ? that’ a real debate, he was poor and couldn’t afford paying $30, but then again maybe if he had $30 he should have found a better use for it then games, and there are many people like him – so why him ?

That’s a real hard question to answer, why you deserve the game – but GOL isn’t serious about it – it’s more like a giveaway.
You don’t really need to convince him why you deserve it for all people, an interesting answer will do.
I’m actually looking forward for next contest, what will the people need to do to win ?
And the stakes are raising as GOL teaming up with LGP to offer bigger prizes for future competitions.

So what competitions would YOU like to see ?
I know I’ve already asked this question before, but there where so little actual ideas that I need to ask again.

1. Find the commercial Linux games nobody knows about, at least, about their Linux port existance (“knows about” criteria may be the game’s presence in happypenguin.org, lgdb.org or other databases/news sites). Although you may think that there are no such a games, you’re wrong. I’ve managed to find commercial games that were released years ago, but they still weren’t included in any popular Linux game database, and there was almost no information about them in the internet (BTW, I’m a lgdb.org member, and I’m regularly finding/posting the games; I have some ideas/strategies that may help people to find the games; no, I’m not going to participate myself, that would be a bit unfair). The prize may be the game itself (you just purchase the game for the person who finds it).

2. Fix some annoying bug or implement a feature in a game. The feature/bug should be first discussed and the voting may be required. The participant shouldn’t be the constant member of game’s developer team, of course.

3. Create and post some art to opengameart.org; alternatively, create the art for some game (again, the discussion and voting to choose the game may be required).

4. Build a game packages for some Linux distribution.

What unites all these ideas, is that of just getting a prize you also do something useful to the Linux gaming community, so that may additionaly motivate people to participate.